Born this Day

1811 Sir George Gilbert Scott – British architect responsible for the Gothic revival, and who designed the Albert Memorial
1859 Sidney James Webb – British social reformer who, with his wife Beatrice, founded the London School of Economics
1928 Bob Crane - Actor (Hogan's Heroes, Return to Peyton Place, Super Dad)
1940 Patrick Stewart – British stage and screen actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation, I Claudius, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People, Excalibur, Dune, Lady Jane, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Gunmen, The Canterville Ghost, Moby Dick, A Christmas Carol, X-Men)
1942 Harrison Ford - Actor (Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones movies, The Fugitive, Blade Runner, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games, Presumed Innocent, Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti, The Mosquito Coast, Working Girl, Air Force One, The Conversation, The Frisco Kid, Force 10 From Navarone, What Lies Beneath, Frantic, Regarding Henry, Cowboys & Aliens)
1942 Roger McGuinn – Musician and singer with the group The Byrds (Mr. Tambourine Man, Eight Miles High, Mr. Spaceman, Turn! Turn! Turn!)
1944 Erno Rubik – Inventor of the Rubik's Cube puzzle
1946 Richard (Cheech) Marin – One half of the Cheech and Chong comedy duo, and actor (Desperado, Far Out Man, Born in East L.A., Rude Awakening, Nash Bridges, Judging Amy)
1949 David Wilcox – Canadian rock guitarist and singer (Between the Lines, Layin’ Pipe, Natural Edge, Breakfast at the Circus)
1951 Didi Conn – Actress (Grease, Benson, Shining Time Station)
1954 Louise Mandrell - Country singer (Put It on Me, Everlasting Love, Reunited, You Sure Know Your Way Around My Heart, Some of My Friends are Old Songs, Save Me) She is the sister of singer Barbara Mandrell
1963 Kenny Johnson – Actor (The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, Saving Grace, Pensacola: Wings of Gold, Blade)
1977 Ashley Scott – Actress (Jericho, The Kingdom, Birds of Prey, Dark Angel, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence)
1988 Steven R. McQueen – Actor (The Vampire Diaries, Piranha, Minutemen, Everwood) He’s the grandson of Steve McQueen


Died this Day

1755 Edward Braddock - British General died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of wounds received after he and his force of British troops and colonial militia were caught in a French and Indian ambush on the way to attack Fort Duquesne. His aide, George Washington, assumed command of the retreating army
1793 Jean-Paul Marat - French scientist-turned-politician and revolutionary figure who always championed the populist cause. During the French Revolution, Marat's opposition to the entrenched powers made him a very popular figure. Originally a doctor, Marat founded the journal L'Ami du Peuple (Friend of the People) in 1789, and its fiery criticism of those in power was a contributing factor to the bloody turn of the Revolution in 1792. In France's revolutionary legislature, Marat opposed the Girondists, which were a faction made up of moderate republicans who advocated a constitutional government and continental war. Marat was the target of powerful interests in France, and thus required heavy protection. By 1793, Charlotte Corday, the daughter of an impoverished aristocrat and an ally of the Girondists in Normandy, came to regard Marat as the unholy enemy of France and plotted his assassination. Leaving her native Caen for Paris, she gained an audience with Marat by promising to betray the Caen Girondists. Marat, who had a persistent and painful skin disease would spend hours in a warm bath, and was working there as usual when Corday met with him, claiming to have information about people conspiring to start a civil war. Corday gave Marat the names of ostensible foes, and reportedly, Marat remarked, "We'll soon have them all guillotined in Paris!" Before his security force could capture her, Corday stepped forward and stabbed him in the chest with a knife she had concealed in her bodice. He died almost immediately, and Corday waited calmly for the police to come and arrest her. She was guillotined four days later. Although Corday denied the existence of a conspiracy, many people refused to believe that a young woman would commit such a crime without being prompted and encouraged
1955 Ruth Ellis – British night club hostess, who was the last women to be hanged in Britain, when the sentence for the murder of her lover was carried out at Holloway Prison
1983 Gabrielle Roy, age 74 - Canadian author (The Tin Flute, The Old Man and the Child, Rue Deschambault, Where Nests the Water Hen) The Manitoba-born writer was a three-time winner of the Governor General's award for fiction


On this Day

1762 Tsar Peter III of Russia was dethroned in a coup
1798 While on a walking tour, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited a ruined church called Tintern Abbey. The ruins inspired Wordsworth's poem, Tintern Abbey, in which Wordsworth articulated some of the fundamental themes of Romantic poetry, including the restorative power of nature. The poem appeared in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems in 1798, which Wordsworth collaborated on with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1837 Queen Victoria became the first monarch to move into Buckingham palace
1863 Rioting against the Civil War military draft erupted in New York City. About 1,000 people died over three days
1863 The Scottish Reform Act required Scotsmen to wear something under their kilts
1866 Colonel Henry Carrington began construction on Fort Phil Kearny, the most important US army outpost guarding the Bozeman Trail. In 1863, a Georgia-born frontiersman named John Bozeman blazed a wagon road that branched off from the Oregon Trail and headed northwest to the gold fields of western Montana. The trail passed through the traditional hunting grounds of the Sioux, and Chief Red Cloud attacked several wagon trains to try to stop the violation of Indian Territory. Despite the questionable legality of the Bozeman Trail, the US government decided to keep it open and began building a series of protective army forts along the route. Colonel Henry Carrington was assigned the task of designing and building the largest and most important of these outposts, Fort Phil Kearny. A talented strategist and designer, Carrington planned the fort with care. He selected a site in northern Wyoming that was near a source of water and commanded a view over a good section of the Bozeman Trail. His first step was to set up a timbering operation and sawmill to supply the thousands of logs needed for construction. By fall, Carrington had erected a tall wooden palisade which surrounded a compound the size of three football fields. Inside the walls, Carrington built nearly 30 buildings, including everything from barracks and mess halls to a stage for the regimental band. However, Carrington's fortress had one important flaw: the nearest stands of timber lay several miles away. To obtain the wood essential for heating and further construction, a detachment had to leave the confines of the fort every day. The Indians naturally began to prey on these "wood trains," and in December, a massive Indian ambush wiped out a force of 80 soldiers under the command of Captain William Fetterman. Despite this weakness, Fort Phil Kearny was still a highly effective garrison, but the US Army found it nearly impossible to halt completely the Indian attacks along the trail. In 1868, the government agreed to abandon all of the forts and close the trail in exchange for peace with the Indians. Immediately after the soldiers left, the Indians burned Carrington's fortress to the ground
1923 A bill banning the sale of alcohol to people under 18 was passed by the British Parliament
1930 The World Cup football competition was inaugurated in Montevideo, Uruguay
1934 Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run
1934 Adolph Hitler declared his right to kill without benefit of law
1942 A German submarine sank three merchant ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
1943 The Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, ended with the German offensive repulsed by the Soviets. It involved some 6,000 tanks, two million men, and 5,000 aircraft
1949 The opening session of the first provincial Legislature of Newfoundland after it joined in Confederation with Canada took place at St. John's, Newfoundland
1953 The first Shakespearean festival at Stratford, Ontario opened with Alec Guinness as Richard the Third
1982 In Montréal Québec, the Montréal Expos hosted baseball’s first All-Star Game to be played outside the US. The National League defeated the American League 4-1, winning for the 11th consecutive year
1985 Live Aid, an international rock concert in London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, Australia, took place to raise money for Africa's starving people. It was televised world-wide to an audience estimated at 1.5-billion and raised at least 100-million dollars
1993 Germany held a farewell ceremony for Canadian soldiers. It marked the end of the stationing of Canadian troops in Germany after 42 years of NATO service